silveradept | May. 17th, 2004

...I went off to ACEN this weekend. My one con of the year. I got to see lots of Pocket Otaku people, as well as the Panda Rage Press guys (yay!) and I had a blast. It was enough to make me forget I didn't have a job for the weekend.

Thus, the rundown: The autograph hunter in me rejoiced greatly, for he scored perfect. And it was a good set of guests. I now have several of my animations signed. It's nice.

A plot was hatched. I am trying to make the most valuable worthless game ever. So, I need to hope that some of the guests who have been at ACEN in years past return so that I can finish this plot. If I get it done, it will be very cool.

My friend H (alias Duck, although H is a good way to describe him, too...) was made an Otaku Saint by our group for performing his third miracle. (It's a bit of a story. If you want it, ask.)

Lively panels (since my circuit is mostly voice acting, they're always lively) and I got to meet the character designer as well as director of Excel Saga. For those who wonder about Nabeshin: Yes, the afro is real. Yes, he does dress like that. Nabeshin is exactly what he is in Excel Saga. I also met the creator, character designer (both concept and production), director, composer, mecha designer, and producer (seven different people) of Read or Die and the voice actress who plays Anita in R.O.D. the TV. And the character designer for Azumanga Daioh's animation, too. (As well as Project A-ko's character designer.) And that was just the Japanese guests.

Nothing started on time for ACEN, and so things got a little sleep-deprived at times. That being said, I watched Nescaflowne and Evangelion: Redeath: Redux in Midnight Madness along with the usual (Heino-included!) insanity of Anime Hell.

I fell asleep in my room while there was hentai being shown. I saw Capoeira, a most interesting martial art (if you've played the Tekken games, it's the style that Eddy and Christine use) that could, quite literally, be "played" (for it is a game set to music, or so they say...) for an entire day, if the conditions were right. All of the moves revolve around a particular "jinga" (a peculiar-looking step) and all return to that jinga after completion. Very cool, especially for 9 AM...

...and on the way back, my vehicle was involved in a three (four?) hour duel of video-game naming, unto which I somehow came out on top. Was a whole bunch of insane fun. The dealer's room disappointed a tad, really. Not a whole lot there that I wanted. But that's okay. Was still fun.

Got to dust off and play quite a few rounds of Morton's List... and inspired, perhaps, a small cult following out of it. I'll have to bring it next year. (One of the con volunteers was a Morton's List player, and he saw my rulebook and asked me about it. Naturally, we teamed up later that evening.) Actually, one of the games was very interesting. We tried to get people to hypnotize each other, with mixed results, but generally successful... I'm still trying to sort through what happened when they tried me (I don't think it worked, but someone else was following along and was hypnotized...) And there we have it. That's the con in a nutshell, really. I have no idea what the other people were doing, but it sounded like they were having fun.

( Enough prattling! Time for some silly memes! )

And now, I'm off to cause mayhem and madness. Or maybe I'll just sit in and watch some anime...